blw and spoon feeding? can we do both?

[avnisha1979]

hi there,

i am new to this forum and have already learnt so much from reading posts.

I love the idea of BLW, so i have started giving my 6.5 month old finger foods, and she seems to be loving it. But i also give her purees, and up til now she has been having both, but recently she has been refusing teh spoon, is this coz she likes "eating" herself? or is it a phase?

Also, she has about 20 ounces of formula milk a day, does that sound about right? Any advice much appreciated.

Thanks!!!

BLW means you let the baby feed themselves, deciding what and how much they eat - so you can't really combine it with spoon feeding. You can mix spoon feeding and finger foods though. But if she likes feeding herself, why not let her?

20oz/3 bottles a day sounds about right to me.

That's 3 bottles if she's eating quite a lot of food of course.

I don't buy into the whole 'let's call it BLW and make it sound like a brand new idea'...it's just how your baby learns to eat. My DD is 10 months, sometimes she has finger foods, sometimes she has spoon-fed meals, sometimes a bit of both.
Sometimes she pushes the spoon away so we stop, other times she loves sitting still and being fed.

Equally, I like 'spoonfeeding' myself with meals like breakfast cereal, soup and stew, and other times I'll use a knife or fork, or pick foods up myself, eg. sandwich. It's just the same.

On your second point, my DD now has 3 x 7oz bottles a day, plus beakers of water with meals. She has her middle of the day milk in a beaker now and we are gradually reducing the amount.

It's not the method of feeding though, it's whether you're feeding her or she's feeding herself. Spoon or fingers is irrelevant.

You can pre-load the spoon i.e. get a spoonful on it and then hand it to the baby (to chuck around no doubt). Or offer them dippers for runny food such as chunks of bread for soup, breadsticks, sticks of veg etc.

blw is also about the idea of giving them food in the form you yourself eat it. I don't eat a lot of pureed food myself.

I've started weaning at just under 6 months, skipped purees and started offering spoons of mashed or mushed cooked fruit and veg (so it has a fair bit of texture to it). DS is very game about trying everything (so far), but is very clear about anything he doesn't like, or when he's had enough. Spoon feeding doesn't have to mean they don't decide what and how much they eat, esp if you can offer a few things at a meal, not just one. Spoonfeeding doesn't mean forced feeding, does it?

I also offer some finger food at each meal, making it the same as mushed food where I can. So he has banana/pear on a spoon, and then sticks of banana and slivers of cooked pear as well. Roast sticks of carrot when he has mashed cooked carrot, etc. It provides nice breaks in the meal - a bit off the spoon, then a gnaw on some finger food etc.

I eat fruit compote myself, with yoghurt, and fruit in slivers in fruit salad etc, so I'm not hugely bothered about the hardcore-ness of the BLW. My DS has reflux, and has always had grumbly bowels and liquid stools. Since starting solids, his reflux has disappeared, and he seems SO much comfier in the bum dept, now doing nice soft proper poos, more regularly, that for both our sakes, I'd like to make it easier for him to keep going with the solid food.

We do both finger foods and spoon fed mush. I wanted to try BLW but I had a prem baby who wouldnt eat (or gain weight!) so we started off with what he would eat which was porridge, yoghurt and banana and have gone on from there. Each meal now is a small bowl of something spoon fed (so I know that he is eating and roughly how much) followed by a plate of finger food and usually something from our plates too - some of which ends up on the floor, down the sides of the highchair, up his sleeve or fed to the dog!). Eventually at 11 months (9 months adjusted) he is starting to take more interest in food and this works for us.

As for the pushing away the spoon - my little man likes to feed himself with the spoon and so is pushing me away in order to do it himself. Took me a little while to figure that one!

Bottles sound about right too.

We do both finger foods and spoon fed mush. I wanted to try BLW but I had a prem baby who wouldnt eat (or gain weight!) so we started off with what he would eat which was porridge, yoghurt and banana and have gone on from there. Each meal now is a small bowl of something spoon fed (so I know that he is eating and roughly how much) followed by a plate of finger food and usually something from our plates too - some of which ends up on the floor, down the sides of the highchair, up his sleeve or fed to the dog!). Eventually at 11 months (9 months adjusted) he is starting to take more interest in food and this works for us.

As for the pushing away the spoon - my little man likes to feed himself with the spoon and so is pushing me away in order to do it himself. Took me a little while to figure that one!

Bottles sound about right too.